


Mouth-to-Mouth

by WishingStar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 14:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7896295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingStar/pseuds/WishingStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I have to be honest with you, Captain. I don't like his chances."</p><p>Steve's grip tightened. "There's got to be something else we can do."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mouth-to-Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Fall semester has begun, and the next installment of "Flare" is not close to finished. I'm sorry. (It's the longest one yet, if that helps at all.) Please accept this dusted-off-and-polished bit of rambly, non-AOU-compliant fluff as a peace offering.

Bruce liked Jane Foster.

To be fair, Bruce liked just about anyone who refrained from flinching when he made sudden moves. A pretty face didn't hurt either, nor did the ability to ask probing questions about his work. And unlike Tony, Jane actually cared about the answers to the questions she asked.

They'd rendezvoused somewhere in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, to investigate strange energy readings not dissimilar from some that Jane had observed in her work on Einstein-Rosen bridges. Of course, because they were the Avengers, anything they investigated naturally turned up Hydra. In this case, Hydra attempting to create portals to other realms. Jane had cursed a blue streak when she heard—something about Phil Coulson and SHIELD and her old notebooks—and demanded she accompany them to the site to help shut it down and recover what she could. Thor had looked vaguely startled and agreed.

So Jane, Bruce, and Darcy hunkered down in the quinjet, ready to lend expertise or help as needed, while the other Avengers who'd been on call that day—Thor, Steve, Sam, Natasha, and the newly-acquired Winter Soldier—cleaned the place out. It was an R&D site, more scientists than agents, so they reported back steady progress. Bruce had almost relaxed, letting the Other Guy sink a little farther beneath the surface, when a burst of gunfire and shouting came over the comms.

"Shit, what did he say?"

"What did who say?"

"It sounded like Russian. Bucky?"

"T'was nonsense, friends, just a string of words with no—"

_"Bucky!"_

"We've got a man down!"

"Guys, what happened?" Bruce leaned forward as if it would help get their attention. "Do you need backup? Is Barnes—"

"Negative, he's still with us. I hope. He just collapsed, must have been some kind of shutdown code. I'm bringing him to you now."

Bruce opened the cabinets containing emergency first aid supplies, and he and Jane started pulling out anything they might need. Darcy cleared a space and laid blankets across one of the bench seats.

"What?" she asked when Jane raised an eyebrow. "If I were shut down in the middle of a battle, I'd want to wake up comfy."

Sam came in dragging Barnes by the torso. "He's unresponsive. Just went down like a sack of bricks. No physical injuries I can see." He laid Barnes on the bench while Bruce set up the equipment that would monitor his vital signs and run diagnostics. Routine work. Focus on the work.

"Is he dead?" Darcy asked.

Bruce still hadn't decided how he felt about Darcy.

"No, look, he's got a heartbeat." Jane pointed to the monitor. Bruce initially thought she'd misread it, before another beat registered.

Bruce turned his attention back to setting up an IV line. "If you can call it that. His heart rate's dangerously low. See if the first aid kit has a—thanks." Jane was holding out a syringe of epinephrin. Bruce injected it into the line.

Barnes' eyelids fluttered. 

Darcy caught Jane by the arm and pulled her partially behind Bruce. "I don't mean to sound, you know, paranoid," she said, "but how do we know—"

"M'not going anywhere, much less attacking anyone," Barnes muttered without turning his head. "Where's Steve?"

Darcy heaved a sigh of relief. Bruce unclenched his fists.

As if on cue, Steve thundered up the ramp of the quinjet, Natasha a step behind. "Is he—hey. Oh, thank God. Is everything okay? What was that?"

Bruce didn't hear if anyone answered, because the more complicated, Stark-proprietary diagnostic results had started appearing on the screen. He skimmed them quickly, heart sinking.

"Hey, guys, we're not out of the woods yet. Those words triggered a neurotransmitter cascade in Barnes' brain, and it's still going on. The epinephrin's keeping him awake for now, but he's going to burn through it in a couple of minutes, and from the trends I'm seeing here, his heart and respiration rates will drop to... well. Too low to sustain life."

"He needs a hospital," Sam offered.

"Interpol's still looking for the Winter Soldier." Steve had his Captain America face on—the one with the stiff upper lip.

"Stark has medical facilities."

"Would he survive the flight to New York?" Steve turned to Bruce, who shook his head.

"What about that new drug you've been working on, Dr. Banner?" Jane interjected. "You said it stabilized the nervous system, and you had a sample here."

Steve's facade dissolved into an expression of mixed hope and pleading. Bruce sighed inwardly. "That won't work."

"But that's what we need, to stabilize him," Steve pressed. He squeezed Barnes' flesh upper arm, apparently unconsciously. Barnes blinked but didn't otherwise react.

Bruce shook his head again. "Look, the point of that drug is to calm me down, _then_ stabilize me. It's a depressant, just like whatever he's fighting. Yeah, it would prevent his heart rate from going below a certain point. But that point would still be too low to maintain basic metabolic functions."

"Okay," Jane said, "so what we need is to find him another stimulant, and administer them both together. Has anyone got an EpiPen?"

Blank stares answered her.

"When I need a stimulant, I drink coffee," Darcy suggested.

Jane snapped her fingers. "Right! Caffeine, caffeine is a stimulant. We just need to find some _really strong_ coffee from the nearest town."

"You've got nothing to lose," said Bruce, "but he hasn't got much time."

"I'll hitch a ride. Won't be a moment." Jane sprinted down the ramp, calling for Thor as she went.

The space inside the quinjet quieted. Bruce prepared a second syringe, this one full of his latest attempt at an anti-Hulk medication. Darcy bit her nails. Natasha and Sam stood statue-like with their hands folded. Steve held Barnes' right hand, the flesh one. He murmured something Bruce couldn't make out, and Barnes shifted his head ever-so-slightly. His vital signs were dropping again, slowly but inexorably. At least he seemed calm. Much as Bruce hated losing patients, the calm ones were easier.

And he'd just mentally referred to Barnes as a _patient_. An old coping mechanism: emotional distance.

"I have to be honest with you, Captain. I don't like his chances."

Steve's grip tightened. "There's got to be something else we can do."

"The best you can do right now is try to keep him conscious. Once Jane gets back with the coffee, we still have to make him drink it."

"You hear that, Buck? You gotta stay with me. We'll have you back on your feet in no time flat, you just need to stay awake right now. Hey, no, don't you dare close those eyes... Bucky, please..."

Bruce averted his gaze, feeling like he was intruding on something private. So he happened to be staring at the monitor a few seconds later, when the patient's pulse and breathing both suddenly spiked.

"That's it! That's perfect, try to keep it right there." Bruce fumbled the cap off the syringe and injected its entire contents into the IV line. He held his breath, watching the readouts. They tapered off slightly, as he'd predicted, but stabilized within an acceptable range. Bruce exhaled loudly and turned to share his relief with the rest of the quinjet. Only then did he fully register the sight of Captain Rogers locking lips with the patient. And not in a polite way. More like he was attempting to swallow his tongue.

The patient, meanwhile, had regained full consciousness and responsiveness to external stimuli, if the way his fingers burrowed into the Captain's hair was anything to go by.

Bruce blinked, then rubbed his eyes.

Nope. He had not imagined the lip-locking.

Steve broke the kiss slowly, changing his mind a couple times in the process. He nuzzled Barnes' cheek and jaw, while Barnes tipped his head back with a tiny smirk on his wet lips. Bruce had never seen someone kissed that hard who looked quite so coolly smug about it afterward... then again, Barnes' nervous system had been artificially depressed. He'd probably be a lot less cool if he were capable of getting excited. 

Then Barnes glanced sideways at the rest of them. Bruce could only imagine how they looked—dead silent, probably all staring with mouths agape. He pushed Steve away, pulled the IV from his arm, and sat up slowly, eyes panning the jet's interior, metal arm partially raised. His face had gone blank, and Bruce realized with an unpleasant jolt that if Barnes were capable of getting excited, he'd probably be in a full-blown panic right now.

Steve, God bless him, seemed to realize this. "Hey, no, it's okay," he said, wrapping his arms around Barnes, coaxing the metal hand down. "They don't mind. It's not the nineteen-forties anymore."

Barnes shifted subtly, constrained but still managing to put Steve mostly behind him. He clearly wasn't taking Steve's word for it.

Bruce started tidying up the medical equipment, trying to project nonchalance. "I'm just glad it worked," he said mildly.

Natasha, on his left, hummed agreement. "I wish Steve had told me sooner. I wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to set him up with women."

Darcy leaned forward. "That," she said earnestly, "was _hot._ Do it again."

Steve gave an awkward chuckle.

Barnes fixed his eyes on Sam. Sam shrugged. "Look, Steve's my friend. You make him happy…" He spread his hands in a _what can you do_ gesture.

"Or else," Natasha finished.

Barnes' eyes went wide. "You can't say that to me," he objected, sounding astonished. "That's my line! I used to _practice_ that line!"

Laughter burst out of Steve like a dam breaking. Bruce had never heard him laugh like that. He threw his head back and guffawed, as if letting out years' worth of tension all at once. He was still holding Barnes tightly enough that they both shook. Barnes swatted his arm.

"I don't know what's so funny. I had to be ready, for when you met some girl who was four-foot-ten or shorter and liked watching newsreels for—shit. I used to practice in front of a mirror. If I break your heart I'm gonna have to beat my own ass into next Tuesday, Steve, shit, I already promised myself."

"Hey, don't you think that's a little premature? I haven't even asked you on a date yet."

Barnes' forehead crinkled as he stared at Steve, uncomprehending. Steve laughed again, then pulled him into another kiss.

Jane Foster entered the quinjet and promptly spilled coffee everywhere.


End file.
